The Most Important Recent Developments of the New Commercial Agencies Regulation No.13/2016
Dr. Bader Saad Al Otaibi
Lawyer at the Court of Cassation and the Kuwaiti Constitutional Court – and a member of the Kuwait Bar Association
Abstract:
This research aims to study the most important developments that were introduced by the new Commercial Agencies Regulation No. 13/2016, especially those which include the protection of commercial agents against the arbitrariness of foreign client companies by providing them with certain guarantees and imposing certain obligations on these agents or commercial distributors to ensure the benefit of consumers. This research is of increasing importance given the pivotal roles that agencies play in the fields of business and economy in Kuwait, which has raised and accumulated several new legal problems, for which the new law has tried to provide solutions. The most important part of this law is the termination of exclusive agencies, the prevention of monopoly and the permissibility of the multiplicity of commercial agencies.
This research demonstrates the main themes of this new law through three discussions that deals with the concept of commercial agency and its image, regulating the profession of commercial agencies and the legal rules applicable to commercial agencies. This discussion is carried out by adopting a comparative analytical methodology that shows the positive aspects added by the regulations of the new law, while at the same time clarifies the existing gaps in some cases.
The research concludes by stressing the importance of establishing an administrative body to monitor the implementation of the Commercial Agencies Regulation, which shall grant its employees the powers of judicial enforcement. The paper also recommends the establishment of economic courts, the adoption of the principle of specialization in the judicial courts and the allocation of jurisdictions that deal with certain types of commercial transactions, including the disputes of commercial agencies and consumer protection.
Keywords: Agent, client, commercial brokers, brokers agents, distributors.